More Than Bread

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So here's the thing...we all love a good story, but I don’t think Christmas, the way our world celebrates it today, could ever prepare us for the depth of the true Christmas story. That story is what truly draws us in. Not the story of consumption but the story of conception. Not the story of last minute sales, but the story of ever present glory. Few stories can rival the story of Jesus, especially the Christmas chapter. It’s an ancient love story with chapters yet to be written.

What if Christmas was not meant to be a mere annual celebration but an ongoing story? What if your story is contained in the unwritten chapters of the Christmas story?  You see the story of Christmas was always meant to be continued. Not just repeated, but continued. We have a part in the messy love-story of Christmas. 

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Ok one more episode that is a bit, ok a bit more than a bit different from the normal fare. Giving me a few days break. Next episode will be back to the WORD and some words on the WORD!

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This one isn't a regular "More Than Bread" episode...it's actually my Christmas Eve message. So if you didn't get a chance to join us...you can ponder "following your star" in this episode. If you did join us, then...read the Christmas story all over again. It's a good one!

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Just imagine that first Christmas.  No Christmas trees or Santas, no lights, lines, or ornaments, No Christmas cards, bell-ringers or stockings hung by the chimney with care. If we were there that first Christmas eve, we would gaze upon 2 poor homeless people, unmarried, spending the night in a lean-to shed attached to the back of an adobe house.  We'd see a young teenage girl going through the  agony and mess of childbirth...no family gathering.  No presents under the tree. No peace.  Bethlehem at this time was bedlam not peaceful.  Filled to overflowing with people from around the country, coming to Bethlehem to be registered and taxed by the enemy-occupying Rome. 

And yet later that night the announcement would come of "good news of great joy to all people." That's the Bethlehem dream, "good news of great joy for all people." How will we celebrate that...this Christmas?

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I hope you can hear me say, don’t get so busy in the Christmas season, that you miss the story. Take some time out, a pause from the Claus, and let your mind and your heart ponder Jesus. Let your soul saturate a bit in Christ. Read the story. Did you know that only 22% of the adults in America feel like they could accurately retell the Christmas story. Read it in Matthew, Luke and even John. Perhaps even read a whole gospel, maybe even all four gospels. 

Let your heart be stirred by the story of Christ. Because Christ is the treasure of Christmas. And there is absolutely nothing, no one like Jesus. Still today. Christmas is not just a good story, it’s a true story and it's not just a true story, it's a continuing story. And it's the story our hearts long for... maybe it's time to come home!

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Mary's song is a song of subversive hope for light in the darkness. And where does it start?  It starts with "My soul magnifies the Lord."  My soul is a magnifying glass for Jesus. Could we say that? When people look at Jesus through us does He look big or small? My soul magnifies the Lord. Here is what I hear in those words. Her God filled her up.  When she looked at life through the eyes of her heart, all she could see was God... magnified.  We all magnify something and what we magnify becomes our hope. What we magnify sooner or later will fill us up.

It's part of the human condition, our souls were created to magnify something.  We often call it worship...to magnify something is to let something become huge in my life. What do you magnify? What is it that gets the most magnification for us at Christmas? If it's not Jesus...we're missing Christmas!

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Now if I started this episode by telling you that we are going to dive into the Christmas conspiracy…what would you think? It’s not political, it has absolutely nothing to do with q'anon…or any deep state stories. In fact I’m not even talking about consumerism or the war on Christmas. I’m not.  

It's not the war on Christmas that I'm speaking about. It's the war of Christmas. When I think back to that first Christmas.  "Merry Christmas" was not the greeting of choice.  There were no Christmas Trees.  No nativity scenes -- well except for one.  But Jesus was not front and center in the public square.  And yet nothing could keep Christ out of the world. That's the battle of Christmas...

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Christmas is the story of how God poured out his favor on the world, through a baby. That's an interesting word isn't it? Favor. "Hey would you do me a favor?" When we ask someone to do us a favor we're saying, "You don't owe me. I don't necessarily deserve this, but I'm wondering if you would do it anyway." Our prayers are often some version of "God I need a favor." The Dictionary defines favor as kindness beyond what is due or usual. I wonder if perhaps the best two word description of Christmas is "God's Favor." 

The birth of Jesus is the overflow of the favor of God. So in this episode I want to dive a bit deeper into the favor of God and how we can get it! 

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All of us at some point, should ask and answer this question, "Jesus are you the one? The Christmas story answers the question with an unqualified yes. And understand, if Jesus really is the one, if he really is who He claimed to be, then He is the single most significant person who every lived. He is preeminent in everything.

And if He is preeminent in everything, than perhaps Christmas was never meant to be one day inspired by the story of Christ's birth; but rather a story that gives inspiration to every day? If I say yes to Jesus. Have I accepted Christ as preeminent in my life? That's truly the Christmas question!

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Do you ever get this sense around December 26th that something is missing? That nagging feeling that we've forgotten something we should've remembered.  Sometimes what we forget is simply this... "It's not my birthday, it’s his. Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birthday. It’s his day. Now let me make it clear, we make such a big deal of  celebrating Christ's birthday because never has such a gift been given to us, as the gift given on the day Christ was born.  He is the gift that changed the world.

Remember the Magi, those three Kings of Orient far? Jesus is the greatest gift ever given to our world, but they didn't come empty-handed. They came bearing gifts.  Don't you sometimes wish you could have been one of them, to stand there before Him and give him a gift that would touch His heart? 

You can...not be one of them...but you can give Him a gift that will touch His heart!